Used to imagine that perhaps it was all of them. Sigh.

If it was literally everyone one might hope we would have had more doubts when the Valar laid down their opinions on the topic.

I don't think it is, but I'm not sure that necessarily would have changed anything. If people thought they were alone -

True. Well. We live in the society we live in, I suppose.

And in a long long time maybe it'll change.

Yeah. We've got forever.

That's the only thing that makes me hesitate - wishing that in a hundred thousand years maybe things would change and - but it's how the universe works, even if Elves and Valar changed we still couldn't marry.

It does seem slightly premature to say that Valar definitely couldn't change that if they wanted to, considering they have never wanted to.

It was that way before we met them, though, it's not something they did.

Yeah. I'm not saying they definitely could, but reembodiments aren't a thing that happens without them either. I think there's still a lot about them we don't really know.

Yeah. If I weren't - scared of them - I'd try to get somewhere.

I know exactly what you mean.

Sigh.

Some tasks are perhaps best left to those with less personal stake.

Except I don't know if it occurs to them.

True. Maybe the risk is worth it. I'm not in a hurry to find out.

Yeah, me neither. 

Well. This is a mildly depressing and fruitless conversational topic. What have you been doing, lately, and how is it coming?

This is a much happier conversational topic! After a little description he asks after hers.

She has been doing some really interesting things with colors! This one ingredient makes the most amazing hue in glass, but it raises the melting point inconveniently, they're still working something out to even that out.

"Is there a lot to be done if you could work at higher melting points?"

"It's not that it's impossible to do that, but it's usually more convenient in the long run to add something to lower it than to find a Maia who'll heat the furnace to the right level."

"Do we still not have a good way to get high temperatures without divine intervention? I sort of expect my uncle to be fussed by that, he wants to leave someday."

"If anyone's invented one it hasn't made its way to my glassworks, anyway."

"Oh, I'm sure he'd make a very public announcement if he'd got it down."